


Life Is What Happens to You

by brightly_lit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother Feels, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Some Humor, Stanford References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 05:42:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11411409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightly_lit/pseuds/brightly_lit
Summary: An old college friend comes upon Sam and Dean looking rough after a hunt.  Dean doesn't understand why Sam seems so ashamed of what he's become.Title from this quote: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -John Lennon





	Life Is What Happens to You

It was another diner, another small town, like any other. They were worn out and dirty after a hunt, eager to get back to the bunker and a clean change of clothes, a soft warm bed, a good home-cooked meal, but home was still too far away to be able to hope for that tonight, so for now it was the cheap highway hotel they just checked into, and this diner like any other.

They picked the corner booth like they often did, Sam favoring bruised ribs and bloody knuckles, falling into the seat with a groan. They ordered their usual--fancy salad for Sam, and Dean was trying an exotic midwestern style of burger he’d never given a chance before, just to mix things up a little--because fact was, they’d fallen into a rut, or something. Everything was a little too predictable. It made Dean nervous.

Turned out he didn’t need to try a new kind of burger after all (and shouldn’t have--Thousand Island on a burger, ugh) when a woman their age approached their table hesitantly. Dean eyed her without seeming to, hunter-style--you were always aware when something appeared to be stalking you or sidling up to you, but he couldn’t detect any danger in her--wondering why on earth she was approaching them when everyone else seemed to instinctively avoid them, and then she said uncertainly, “... Sam?”

Sam looked at her wildly. He hadn’t been paying attention, lost in thought. He looked her over three times in succession. Dean even thought he knew what each time scanned for--#1: demon, angel, monster? #2: hunter, woman of letters, hunting buddy like Jody or Donna? #3: a more general collecting of characteristics and identifying information: clothing, hair, age, likely marital status, type of work and home state. They’d been traveling the country for so long, they sometimes made a game of guessing from where someone who didn’t seem to be from around there hailed and eavesdropping until they got the answer. Usually the bet involved who had to make dinner at the bunker next time--a really elaborate one that definitely involved some of the other’s favorites--calling the bet off if they were both wrong, and they’d had many an elaborate meal of a long, lonely, hunt-free evening. Dean pegged her as probably originally west coast, better educated and more ambitious than her slightly frumpy mom clothes would usually indicate here in the midwest where being a soccer mom was considered something to be proud of. Dean guessed Sam saw the same things.

Sam fumbled, bewildered as he eventually choked out, “... Diane?”

She smiled. “Yeah! What are you doing here? You’re a long way from Stanford.”

Dean grinned behind his beer, before remembering that he hadn’t made his guess out loud and therefore would not be receiving a Sam’s-burger special anytime soon. He tried to catch Sam’s eye to silently let him know, at least, of his victorious guess (Sam would probably glean his meaning just from a look--Dean told himself it was because he knew him so well, choosing not to think maybe he was just that predictable), only to see that Sam was far too freaked out to notice. 

Dean looked her over again himself. What did Sam have to be so freaked out about? Seemed like a regular college-grad mom stuck someplace she doesn’t really want to be to Dean, no monster tendencies, no hint of demon attitude.

“You too,” Sam managed. He moved over so she could sit next to him in the booth, which they both did with long familiarity, as if the two of them had slid into many a booth together over years. This seemed impossible to Dean--who could Sam know that well whom Dean had never met?--until he realized it was absolutely possible. Four years at college was enough time for countless things of which Dean had no inkling to have happened to Sam, to have became daily habit for him, and here was one in the flesh.

“Yeah, well,” she sighed, “got married right out of college, moved out here for my husband’s job. I still haven’t been able to find anything in my field, so I figured the time was right to have kids, even if I felt like we were a little young, but ... ten years on, and we’re still here!” she said with an unsuccessful attempt to sound cheery about the whole thing. Dean surreptitiously made three checks in his imaginary “win” column in the water on the table from the condensation from his beer glass. He had her pegged, 100%.

Which Sam evidently hadn’t at all. He sounded genuinely shocked when he said, “Really? _You_? But you were gonna ....”

“I know,” she cut him off. “But, you know, life happens.” She shrugged unhappily, then eyed Sam, eyed Dean, her gaze passing across their scruff, their hair, their clothes. Sam hid his bloody knuckles just in time. “What about you, Sam? Did you ever--”

“Just on a roadtrip with my brother,” he said tightly. She looked at Dean, then back at Sam, trying to peg them as Dean had pegged her and failing, as any civilian would. Only another hunter knew the signs. What would they look like to her? If she was observant, she would notice their transience and how comfortable they were with it, their disregard for their appearance with some wrong guess for why that might be. If she were particularly keen-eyed, she might notice faint bruises and scuff-marks on their clothing. Sam seemed to be trying to hide it all, to be trying in vain to hide his whole person from her gaze. 

“Camping,” Sam added quickly. “Roughing it.” She only looked more confused, like it didn’t add up, and she was right, it didn’t. “We were,” he went on, and Dean winced slightly. Go on, keep digging your hole deeper, Sam. “I mean,” said Sam. “Were camping, now we’re headed home.”

“Oh! Where’s home?”

“Um ... Kansas.”

“Oh, back with your folks,” she said approvingly, appearing to dismiss everything she’d discerned about their appearance since it made no sense anyway, hanging her understanding instead on Sam’s cryptic words. “Lots of people had to move back in with their folks during the recession,” she said kindly.

“Oh, uh, no,” Sam said quickly. Apparently he wouldn’t be satisfied with the truth, anything she guessed, or even anything he could think of, as he stuttered, trying vainly to think of something good.

Dean couldn’t take anymore second-hand embarrassment. “Our folks are dead,” he said bluntly. “You probably knew about our mom, but our dad passed, too, several years ago now. It’s just him and me.” He met Sam’s outraged stare steadily as Dean took a swig of his beer.

“Oh, Sam, I’m so sorry,” she said, looking at Sam with open-hearted concern, under which Sam cringed, embarrassed by her sympathy or his need for it or ... something. Everything. Dean quelled a sudden, strong urge to tell her all the things there were to feel sad for Sam over. Couple of long-dead parents didn’t even scratch the surface.

Sam must have seen the thought, because if looks could tie you up and gag you, Dean would be securely locked up in the bunker, incapable right now of uttering a single word Sam didn’t want her to hear. Dean grinned impishly back, putting on a serious face once she looked in his direction again.

“It’s nothing,” Sam muttered, eyes permanently downcast. 

Their bill arrived and she took her leave. “Say, Sam ... my husband’s out of town.” Dean’s eyebrows shot up, shot back down by Sam’s withering glare. Apparently Sam, at least, didn’t think that could possibly be what she meant, and Dean supposed Sam would know better than him what she was after. “Would you like to come see my house tonight? We can catch up, learn what each other’s been up to all these years. I’ve thought about you often, but I never would have guessed you’d have lost your parents so young. If you get there before their bedtimes, you can meet my kids. I’ve got three! Two boys and a girl.”

“I’d love that,” Sam said sincerely.

Back at the hotel, Sam was tearing apart his duffle, looking for something halfway decent to put on, but though there was one change of clothes that wasn’t torn and bloody, there was nothing but hunter garb and a fed suit. Once upon a time, maybe, when they lived out of the Impala, but now that they had the bunker, they only brought the clothes they knew they’d need.

He was yelling at Dean, too, which he never bothered with, having long since concluded Dean couldn’t be repressed or improved, which was how Dean knew Sam was in a rare state. When Sam started wildly scraping at the cuts in his hairline, trying in vain to make them disappear, Dean had to do something. “Sam, what?”

“What ‘what,’ Dean?” Sam snapped.

“What’s your problem? I watched you there in the diner, lying your ass off to this girl who was obviously a close friend. Did you say one true thing to her tonight? I mean, your college friends are your business, but I’d say if you really respect the girl like you seem to, maybe give her the truth. Not all the truth, obviously, but you don’t have to lie about _everything_.”

Sam flung down the handtowel and turned on Dean. “Oh yeah? Which part do I tell her, Dean? The part about the demon blood? Or maybe about being chosen to be the devil’s vessel? About being a man of letters? Even the bunker, even the place we live is some freaky compound. She invited me to her house, but I could never invite her to mine. There is not one single normal thing about us anymore, Dean. God, I thought I was such a freak, growing up on the road the son of a hunter. When I went to Stanford, I already thought I was as weird as they come, and now look at me!”

“Yeah,” Dean said sharply, “now look at you. Saved the world a couple of times, killed countless demons and monsters--”

“She’s going to ask me about my law degree. She majored in archaeology, top of her class--”

“No wonder she can’t find a job in Ohio,” Dean quipped.

“But what about me?” Sam hissed. “At least someday her kids will be grown or she’ll finally ditch her husband and she can live the life she always wanted, but not me, Dean. This is us. This is what I’ll be until the day I die.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” Dean demanded. “I think we’re doing pretty good.”

Sam laughed bitterly. “‘What’s wrong with that?’ I saw it in her eyes. She was _horrified_. And you know what? If I’d seen what I’d become, if I’d seen my future back when I was in Stanford, or even in high school, I’d be horrified, too. I look like some kind of criminal freak.”

“She wasn’t _horrified_ ; she was concerned. That was all in your head.”

“All those hunters we met as kids, I swore I would never become one of them, Dean, I swore it. And I became it more than I ever could have imagined. It’s all I am, anymore. All I ever will be. You know what? I’m not even going over there. Let’s get out of here. You sleep; I’ll drive. We’ll be home by noon.”

Dean stood up and turned Sam to face him as Sam swiped at his eyes. Dean grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Sam, come on. Listen to me. Listen to _her_. You heard her, didn’t you? ‘Life happens.’ She’s never gonna become an archaeologist, Sam. You think it’s that easy, just ditch the kids and the dude and run off and live your dream? She’s a mom now and she always will be. Maybe she’ll find a job in her field someday, maybe not, but she’ll be starting at the bottom and her career won’t be any more glamorous than anyone else’s, because that’s not how life works. She’s never gonna be Indiana Jones. But she’s a _mom_ , Sam! She had kids! That’s cool, too. We’ve wanted that normal, apple-pie life, plenty of times.”

“Yeah, and you know the life _I_ never wanted, Dean? This one.”

Dean sat down on the bed. This had been a long time coming. A lifetime coming. This had been in Sam since the day they hit the road when he was a tiny little kid, this dissatisfaction, this resistance to the direction his life was taking him. Stanford suddenly made sense to Dean. That was Sam’s last-ditch effort to escape his destiny, to escape the future he knew was out there. 

Dean finally shook his head. “I dunno. I’m trying to picture you a lawyer with a wife and two point five kids--”

“Two-point-three now,” Sam interrupted shortly, and Dean couldn’t suppress a soft guffaw.

“... Two-point-three kids, and I just can’t see it. Rat race, climbing to the top, making partner ... man, wouldn’t you be bored?”

Sam slumped on the bed beside him. “I wanted to wear a suit and look respectable, not like ... a hunter.”

“And see, you get to wear the fed suit all the time!” Dean exclaimed brightly, while Sam rolled his eyes. Irrepressible, Dean went on, “Plus, raising kids ain’t no picnic. I know; I raised you. It’s a pain in the ass. I don’t think you’d like it.”

“Well, the point-three kid probably wouldn’t be that much trouble.”

Dean looked at him in surprise, saw the little smirk, and burst out with a chuckle, slapping Sam’s back. “I think all you ever really wanted to do was save the world. Maybe you thought law was how you did that--” Sam nodded slightly “--but I think really it’s mostly about paperwork and collecting money, and man, you _did_ save the world!” 

Sam’s smile was real now, however slight. They sat there in silence for a long couple of minutes. Dean got up and started picking up after Sam’s tantrum with his duffle, as he’d done so many times when they were kids. “I think you should go,” he said. “Go see Diane. Tell her what you can. Because, Sam, I don’t look at you and see a failed anything. You’ve got so much to be proud of. I mean, sure, life happened. Be proud of that, too.” 

Sam rose, eyes a little wet, and went to the mirror. He looked himself over, started fussing with his hair, with the cuts in his hairline, and stopped abruptly, grabbing his jacket and heading for the door. “I’ll be back by one,” he said shortly, and left, his shoulders squared, his expression set, ready to face the truth. Ready to face his destiny.


End file.
